Hello, and thanks for tuning into Taste Radio, the number one podcast for anyone building a business in food or beverage. I'm Ray Latif, the editor and producer of Taste Radio, and with my co-hosts Melissa Traverse and Mike Schneider. In this episode, we recap standout moments from BevNET Live NYC 2026, discuss DryWater's rapid rise in hydration powders, highlight the launch of functional cookie brand Fields Good, and explore the opportunities and challenges of marketing beverages to kids and families.
No John Craven. He's in Copenhagen right now, which is I'm definitely jealous. I mean- I was gonna say- Yeah ... that's like your second home. I wish it were my second home. So much black licorice.
I am so jealous. Wow. I'm not jealous of that. I don't know how he made it out there. This is one of the first times in a long time where I've come back from an event like BevNET Live, and I was pretty run down. I needed about three days to recover, but what an event. What a spectacular... It was worth every sniffle.
I know we talked about this in our last episode, but just to reiterate, thank you all so much for coming out to the event. Just amazing from beginning to end. So great to see people in real life and just talk to them about their businesses, how they're creating next gen brands for the beverage industry and beyond, and helping them to connect with people who are at the event and those who are offline as well.
It was just great to speak to founders who said, "Okay, here's where we are at our stage of business, and here's what we need help with." And just the ability to turn around and connect those folks to people who are literally behind you, whether it be a supplier or a retail buyer, whether it be a distributor, an investor.
And BevNET Live, as we've always talked about is really about the connections that happen at the event. Our number one goal for BevNET Live is always to make it inspiring and energizing and productive for all of the people who come to the event. But it really is all of those things for us as well.
I always leave BevNET Live feeling even more excited about everything that we're doing and more energizing. I spoke to a number of people who have been introduced to Nonbase through Taste Radios. I've joined all of you, which is always so exciting, and I hope everyone had an amazing time, as great as I did.
I'm right there with you, and it's so great to connect with people and have just... I don't know, some of these moments that we have are a little bit surreal. Like Miguel Gonzalez from 24 7 Packaging walks up to me and he's "It's so weird to see your face there when I'm used to just hearing your voice."
And then we- Yeah ... had this great conversation, and he's a huge fan of Taste Radio. And Miguel, thanks so much for listening. It was great to connect with you IRL again, right? He came to the Taste Radio meetup in Miami too. And it's just great to make those connections in real life. And, sometimes we just catch up on nothing, and people love that part about BevNET Live too.
And then it's, "All right, what can we do for each other?" Yeah. Yeah. I was really happy when I got to talk to listeners who have pitched the show in the past. and have a deeper conversation with them or their proxies. And by proxies, folks who work for the company. Someone had pitched their founder or made a pitch on behalf of their founder, and I got a deeper dive into how the company is operating, what makes it special, what differentiates them in terms of route to market or packaging or supply or ingredients or anything that just really makes them stand out from the competition.
And it yielded, or it's going to yield, an interview on the show. So the email pitch was one thing, and the email pitch was fine, but the actual experience of having a five-minute conversation with someone about a particular brand really made the difference for me. And look, I'll just be really transparent about this.
We get a lot of pitches for this show. I would say f- over, under is usually 20 a week or so. And Obviously we can't put every single person on the show, but it definitely helps when I have a real-life connection, a five-minute in-person conversation that helps me to remember... it just really, it humanizes the conversation a lot more.
It's also been nice to see how we kinda splay from the Taste Radio podcast too, and create additional opportunities. There are ways to say yes to you if you haven't been on the show before. The easiest way is Elevator Talk. At our events, when we do our On the Spot, people really like that. I got to meet Marie-Sophie Desormeau from that, from Myce.
Oh, very nice. Very good pronunciation there. I hope so. I'll have- And Myce is M-Y-C-E? M-Y-C-E, which is a kanna beverage, and I hadn't known a lot about kanna before that. Obviously we talk about kava, we talk about kratom. Kanna is a ingredient that, it basically prolongs the serotonin that you already have- Yeah
that you're already making, and makes you, just, it's a great feel-good beverage. K-A-N-N-A. Yeah, we met the founders of a brand called Inner Bloom, which is a maker of kanna beverages, at our Taste Radio San Diego meetup last September. Really interesting to speak with them as well, and I was not familiar with the ingredient, and it's gonna be interesting to hear about Marie-Sophie's take on the category.
Her branding and her product and it, everything about it feels a little bit more social, but also refreshing in a way. And advanced. Yeah. It's really nice packaging. Where- whereas Inner Bloom definitely felt like a brand for nightlife. It definitely felt like a brand for bars, clubs, et cetera, and I think that's what the positioning was when I spoke with the founders.
Whereas Marie-Sophie I felt like it was something, Myce was something that you could almost bring to the beach. I felt the same way about that. You could bring it to the beach. I think there's also gonna be some confusion about did you say cannabis- ... with the ingredient? So there's a lot of education that needs to happen there.
And Myce and Inner Bloom, I hope those two brands get a chance to meet, because as we've learned over time and talked about ad nauseam at the event, category building together is a thing, and these are your friends, not your enemies. I think that's one of my favorite things about BevNET Live, is watching founders and operators who are competitors in the same category meet and connect with each other.
For example, I was watching Logan Milano, the founder of Amaranth, which is a product based on honey. Mad Honey. Mad Honey. Yeah. Which was... yeah. That's my ingredient of the week. The ingredient. I'll get to that. It's the ingre- ah. I'll get to the ingre- Can we scream like Pee-wee He- Pee-wee Ingredient of the week.
Like Pee-wee's Playhouse. Ah. But w- I was watching him chat with Sean Rosenberg, the founder of Goldie. Goldie. They could sit side by side on the shelf and be competitors, but they have so much to gain by joining up and talking and, bringing more attention to honey as- The honey beverage category.
Ingre- yeah, exactly. So that's- that's always one of- one of my favorite things. The other thing I love is finally getting to meet brands and founders that you've heard so much about and you feel like but, maybe actually haven't met in person. So I got to finally meet Anjali from Anjali's Cup.
I interviewed Anjali in the live stream studio. She is such a pleasure, and the product itself is so tasty. She has a chai concentrate that's very low sugar and has so much flavor. But the way that she was explaining the product and how it's based on Ayurvedic principles really put the whole thing together for me.
And of course, the product is delicious. Yeah. So that was great. I've known Anjali for about 10 years, and she's just a remarkable founder. Yeah. And, like any founder, she's had her ups and downs with the brand and with the tariffs that came into play last year. There was a lot of press about Anjali's Cup and how she was navigating the turmoil caused by the tariffs.
But the good news is everyone can share in that interview that you did with Anjali, Melissa. Because we're gonna be posting all video content from BevNET Live on the bevnet.com website. If John Craven were here right now, he would s- he would say that's pretty redundant to say," right? Or say something, something snide about something like-
.com and website at the same time. Anywho. See, now you can say whatever you want. Now I can say whatever I want, but I still feel the glare and the heat from his seat across from me. Keeping you in check. Yeah. But all that video content will be available to insiders of BevNET and NOSH. So if you wanna tune in Just make sure you're an insider.
It's very easy to do. Head to bevnet.com or naj.com to find out. More IRL experiences on the horizon. Of course, the Summer Fancy Food Show, which is also happening in New York City, taking place on June 28th, 29th, and 30th. I'll be there. Melissa, are you gonna be there? I will be there. Mike, you gonna be there?
I'm in. All right. I think John's gonna be there, too. You guys, as in John and Mike, you're only gonna be there for a day, right? We usually do that. We usually- Train in and train out ... train in and train out. Yeah? Yeah. I'll be there the 28th and the 29th. I find that I just like having longer conversations. I get so much more out of them, so- i'm going for two days. Yeah. Crapping on our strategy. Ah. It, I, it is pretty rough to just go up, try to see everybody- Yeah ... that we wanna see, and then come back. The Summer Fancy Food Show, one of my favorite shows. Yeah. It's a fantastic place to just as you said, have longer conversations- Yeah
with people. So we inevitably don't have as many as we'd like to because we're, "Oh, should we stay a little bit longer?" And that's where I get so many ideas for non-based content. Same thing with BevNET Live. When you really get into a conversation with someone, that's how you figure out what to base a show around.
Yeah. If you're attending or exhibiting at the Summer Fancy Food Show, just let us know. Send us a note to ask@tasteradio.com or hit us up on LinkedIn, IG, or I guess whatever social media platform you think might be best for us to communicate with you, which is... I just named the top two of them. You could send a carrier pigeon if you want.
You could send... That's- Is that a social media platform? That's... I'm not sure. It was the origin- It's the OGs. The original. Yes. Yeah. And of course, we have more meetups on the horizon. Chicago on August 14th, 2026. Just wanna make sure we have the year right. San Diego on September 15th, San Francisco on September 17th, and London on October 21st.
If you're in any of those cities or visiting those cities, head to tasteradio.com/meetups to RSVP. Thank you so much to our national partners, Vibrant Ingredients, Belay Solutions, and the Angel Group. Just world-class. Yeah. World-class folks. So I saw this really interesting story on BevNET earlier this week.
It's about a brand called DryWater, which sounds like an oxymoron, right? Dry water, how does this work? But it's a powdered beverage brand that provides hydration benefits, essential vitamins, and it is exploding. The founder of the company is someone I interviewed for Elevator Talk just a short time ago.
His name is Brian Appio. And DryWater, according to this article on BevNET, which was penned by our very own Lucas Southard, is expanding to 41,000 locations, and will be in those 41,000 locations by the end of the year. This is a brand that was only founded in March of 2024. And one of the most poignant moments in the article was when Brian was talking about how the company built a group that was already in love with and using the brand on a regular basis before they started targeting the big retailers that they're in right now, and that includes a Walmart, a Wegmans, a Kroger, Vitamin Shoppe, and Target What Brian had said, and this is a quote in the article, is that, "We built a fan base before even pitching those buyers.
When we got the meetings, they literally just said, 'We drink it already. Tell us how many stores you want.' It was never us going to them because we had already championed them as customers." And because they waited to launch national retail, they were able to save themselves a lot of capital by iterating before they were in retailers across the country.
When you do change your packaging and your product when you're in retail, especially major retail, there are so many expenses and fees that come up. But because they iterated before they were on shelf in a major way, they saved themselves so much money. You can read the full article about Dry Water on bevnet.com.
Once again, penned by our very own Lucas Southard. Good to see Lucas at BevNET Live too, yeah. Yeah I think we'll see him at Fancy Food as well So from hydration and vitamin powders to cookies, 'cause that's a natural transition, right? There is a new brand out there, and it's called Fields Good, F-I-E-L-D-S Good, G-O-O-D.
And it is a brand of cookies that feature 10 grams of protein and four grams of, Melissa? Fiber. Fiber. There you go. What's the source of fiber? Some of them- I must know ... are 10 grams of protein. Oh some of them. Okay, the one I picked up- The protein cookie is ... it's a protein cookie. Oh, okay, so there's different- These are different mood state cookies.
Oh, interesting. Yeah. Okay, so the first one I picked up was, I thought it was the... I thought they were all the same. This is a peanut butter variety. This is described as a protein cookie. This one has 10 grams of protein. Then there's a focus cookie which has three grams of creatine and is also boosted with cognizin citicoline, which is a brain-boosting ingredient.
And then you have a sleep cookie, this is their oatmeal raisin variety, which is baked with 250 milligrams of L-theanine. So- These are samples, so we don't know the fiber source. Ah, dang it. We'll find out. Isn't the founder of this product in relation to- She has famous DNA, yes. Yes. She is- The daughter of Mrs.
Fields. She is a legacy founder because she is the daughter of the person who founded Mrs. Fields Cookies. I would say that these have a much healthier tilt- ... than the Mrs. Fields Cookies that you would see at a mall, certainly because they include essential nutrients like protein or a functional benefit like creatine or L-theanine.
Now- Her name's Ashley Fields Fyah. Yes. Now, some folks might have a bone to pick with this brand because people don't necessarily like associating a flavor with a function. In other words, I've heard, and this is from episodes of Elevator Talk where co-hosts have- I guess offered some constructive feedback to brands or to founders who have products like these where you say, "Oh the oatmeal raisin variety is only a sleep cookie variety."
Like That junk comes right out of my mouth. Like when I say, when I'm thinking of just what you're saying right here. I'd like to see three protein varieties- exactly ... or three sleep varieties or whatever. Like I would love to see a protein cookie that is an oatmeal raisin variety, and there's only that one peanut butter variety.
Or I might like to say, "Oh I want a peanut butter variety that's associated with, say, the focus." Perhaps down the line they will incorporate flavors for each specific function, but this point coming out of the gate with a function and a flavor tied to each other as opposed to, one function, three flavors.
This is certainly a good way to figure out what hits. It is, but it's also... It introduces... These are so good. I'm eating the mocha chocolate as I'm talking. Is that the focus one? Oh, there you go. You're gonna sound- See how focused I am? I can see it. Can I try one of these? Yeah, of course. You're not wrong to say you can figure out what hits, but you're not gonna know what hits, if it's the flavor or the function that hits.
Let's say the focus cookie- ... explodes. Is it because it's mocha chocolate or is it because of the Cognizin? I'm trying the mocha chocolate as well. The Cognizin has me interested. Yeah. You know what? I would love to see Ashley on stage at Nosh Live in December as part of the Nosh Pitch Slam.
We're gonna get these folks on Elevator Talk, but it'd be interesting- Fantastic ... it'd be interesting to see where the brand is in s- in about six months, and if they have found some success and traction with this strategy as is, or if they plan to evolve and expand flavor varieties for each function.
When we spoke to Ashley at Expo West, she was open to any ideas. They're basically, as we said before, just put the matrix together and trying to figure out what hits with people. And she does like this idea of cookies for moods and cookies for different times of the day. Yeah. The tagline is "Cookies that taste as good as they feel."
And they note smart ingredients, tastes like nostalgia, and only the good stuff. And, Ashley really does, of course, have a benefit being a legacy founder. It makes me think of Nicole Dawes. She was the daughter of the founder of Cape Cod Potato Chips, and of course she went on to launch- You mean industry legend Nicole Dawes?
Yeah, industry legend. But really, she learned so much by watching what her father did, and she was able to make really good decisions right out of the gate. So I'll definitely- Yes ... keep my eye on Geo Goods. She also understates that stuff, too. She is one- ... smart cookie. Of- ... of course.
Of course. Pun intended. Yes. Of course. Yes. And she's the founder of Late July, which is a maker of salty snacks, most notable, their tortilla chips. She's also now the founder of Nixie, which is a brand of sparkling water and zero-calorie sodas. Usually you're, "Oh, they're fantastic." But come on, Ray, these are fantastic- They're insane
zero calorie sodas. And, you know- Yeah ... keep your eye on Nonbase for Nicole Dawes' education course. We have that coming out, so more on that later. That is a coup, 'cause Nicole Dawes is one of the sharpest people I know in the industry. And if I were an early stage founder in the beverage industry or otherwise, I would be like, "I've got to tune into that."
Just standing next to Nicole, I think you would by osmosis Yes ... learn a lot, never mind watching an hour-long course. So I saw a couple founders, or I met a couple founders at BevNET Live who are marketing kids' drinks. And kids' drinks are always an interesting category to talk about because at the end of the day, the kids are not buying these products.
It's the parents who are buying these products. But you've got to market to parents and kids. Two pretty distinct consumer groups. And they age out. Yeah. Which is, means you're in constant acquisition mode, which acquisition, as is expensive. And, as a family, you're probably only going to be marketing to that family for a number of years, depending on what age group you're targeting with your brand.
But I keep seeing new kids' drinks come to market, and in 2026, I feel like I've seen even more kids' drinks come to market than in years past. I'm holding two. Now, Willa's is a brand of oat milk that's existed on the market for some time. They recently introduced a new kids product. They have ... And it's described as organic kids oat milk with protein.
They come in these eight-ounce Tetra Pak cartons with a screw top. I forget what they call it. A DreamCap is what they call that. It's 120 calories per eight-ounce carton. It includes six grams of added sugar and eight grams of protein. I would say that's a pretty good, healthy beverage for kids. And tasty.
It's a good snack. Yeah, you get a good amount of nutrients in there. Now, kids ... I don't know, though. I don't know how many kids just drink oat milk. I think it's a good product. I think if you live in a vegan or vegetarian household, maybe this is a really good option, but I know a lot of kids that love soda.
If they're lactose intolerant. That too. Good point. Good point. Now, obviously kids love soda. Every chance they get a sip of soda is like a dream come true, and I saw this new brand in our cooler called Roxbry, R-O-X-B-R-R-Y. It's described as fizz for kids, no fake stuff, and they have three varieties. The variety I'm holding in my hand is their Galaxy Gulp.
It's a citrus product, a citrus-flavored product. It contains carbonated water, orange juice, coconut water concentrate, cane sugar, monk fruit, and spirulina. Those are the ones that ingredients that you probably know. It comes in this short seven-point-five-ounce fluid can. Now, I'm wondering to you guys, I'm gonna put this to you and to our audience, which of these do you think has the better shot of making it, the Willa's oat milk or the Roxbry, we'll call it a soda?
I'm going Willa's Oat Milk. I think that's something that a mom or a dad would easily give their kid for, to have with breakfast, to have with lunch, whatever. I do think if the kid is lactose intolerant, it would be a good choice, and I think the nutrition factor in the oat milk would put a parent over the edge.
Mike? That's a hard call. I would say the oat milk because when you put something fizzy in the hands of kids, they've... I don't know, they've had a lot of soda at this point, and so you probably need to get the flavor as close as possible to something that is the alternative. So yeah that one's gonna be a challenge.
Yeah, the Roxberry Galaxy Gulp, the Citrus is probably going after that Sprite consumer. Sure. It's only 25 calories per 7.5 ounce can, so you gotta think the flavor's gonna be a little different than you would, you would expect from a Sprite. Probably significantly different. But I do think that there is some upside.
I think there's pretty significant upside actually for kids' sodas. I think with the right financial partner or the right strategic partner, I really do think that there's a big runway for better for you soda for kids. Think about what better for you soda has done for the soda category overall with brands like Poppi and Olipop and Culture Pop coming to market.
These are products that no one ever considered, but it's opened up a whole new opportunity to reach consumers who wanted a different kind of soda or never considered soda. And now look. I disagree. If I was giving one piece of advice to Roxberry, it would be don't waste your time marketing to kids. This stuff tastes great.
I'm drinking the Ocean Potion Fruit Punch, which tastes exactly like Better For You Hawaiian Punch. Go after Gen Z, and this is a nostalgia play. I like it too. I'm Gen X, obviously, and I would guzzle this stuff. It's not bad for you. Only five grams of sugar in this. It is a smaller serving, so that's a lot of sugar.
But if I'm only drinking this 7.5 flu ounce can, this is gonna be challenging too. Just this can size is gonna be challenging for you. I'd go 12 ounce. I'd market it with nostalgic flavors, and I'd take my shot that way. This stuff's really good. I think the use occasion for the kids' soda is challenging.
In our house, real soda is a special occasion thing. You go out to eat or, you have a birthday party, something like that. So changing the idea of soda as a special occasion thing to maybe more of an everyday thing because it's better for you, I think is challenging. I'm not trying to hate on you, Roxberry.
This is the hardest business. You chose it. Yeah. You can't not do it. You're this far into the business, and I give you a lot of credit for what you've accomplished so far. But, hit me up. @BevNetMike on Instagram. Let's chat. I'd love to, I'd love to break this down a little bit with you because it's a really good tasting beverage.
It doesn't have a lot of ingredients. You're using good things in here. Pineapple, black cherry, coconut water concentrate, citric acid, cane sugar. Like, all the good things are in this, and I don't know, I think this has a shot at a, a more adult level than... And you're not gonna be putting yourself through that constant acquisition, and you can create loyal customers forever who, will probably share this with their kids.
And you don't have to be a kids brand to be for kids. And Mike, I know you talked about increasing the size, but as an adult myself, I don't know that I hate a smaller can myself. I just don't know where this is gonna be merchandised. That's the biggest problem here. It's you're gonna see this can sitting, and are you gonna put this next to a Poppi?
Because I could drink this next to a Poppi. I could see this sitting, next to Poppi or Olipop on shelf, or Culture Pop or any of those, and it's like just a bit of a different play on that, where you're just going for these nostalgic flavors and better for you ingredients, and that's innovation.
